Beyond Good and Evil?

Thursday, January 23, 2020

4 a.m. I suppose you have a good reason for again setting the cat among the pigeons – quite deliberately, this time, as I could feel.

People have strong resistances to certain messages. There are reasons for those resistances, and it is not simply a matter of the natural reaction to a statement that one recognizes as wrong. It is much closer to that which occurs when one knows that a given statement is right, but emotionally unacceptable. In such case, it becomes important to know why it is unacceptable. Where resistance is, is where the gold is buried. True in psychology, true equally in these explorations.

And the simple answer is –?

It always boils down to one’s having a vested interest in the wrong answer.

Like Southern Senators in the 1850s becoming unable to hear criticism of slavery.

That’s choosing an emotionally loaded example to explain emotional loading, but yes, much like that. And hardly limited to that one example, of course.

Now, we said we would resume with a statement we asked you to think about. Did you actually do the thinking?

I can’t really say that I did. I brought it to mind a couple of times, even went back to this book to re-read it. But thinking, in the sense of pondering, putting logic to it, no.

Re-state it.

“The world is a vast swirling chaos of contending forces. That is the freedom of it.”

If you cannot think about it on your own, perhaps we can think together.

I often think that’s the main idea behind these conversations, to help me think.

So, put together some ideas about the statement, and we will see where we go.

Well, I suppose you are saying that if the 3D contained only half as many –. All right, let’s back up. You said “forces.” I took that to mean emotional attitudes, I guess. Is that what you mean?

You see? That’s all that thinking is, considering consciously so that you can see what you do and do not understand. Clarification then poses new questions.

I tend to think of thinking as being constructing chains of logic, quite a different thing. Okay, so, is that what you meant by forces?

Bear in mind, we are thinking of the 3D world in its entirety, seen and unseen. Therefore we are, by extension, thinking of the entire world, 3D and non-3D, as they shade into one another. (Or, more accurately, considering the two aspects of the one reality rather than considering only one as if it were a separate thing.)

If you are considering 3D and non-3D, it amounts to the All-D, or everything, so why think of it as if it were 3D only? Oh, because it is easier for us to wrap our minds around.

It is until it ceases to be, yes.

So, your mental and physical world comprises everything, of course. All parts of all unities experienced as dualities must be represented. If one were not – if it were somehow possible to omit a piece of reality – how would you ever know? It would be literally unthinkable, unimaginable. So one thing you do not need to consider is whether all forces manifest. They do. That is not the same thing as saying that all forces manifest in any one “individual” soul, nor that they manifest in equal strength. Obviously they don’t, and as we say, that’s the freedom innate in the situation.

I take it that you mean, each of us embodies certain values, which mirror values at large in the world. We come into 3D to represent those forces, I suppose. But in representing certain forces, automatically we oppose the opposite of those forces.

A little slower, but yes, that is the idea.

• Anybody is only a splinter of everybody. Any part is only a part (by definition) or any whole.
• But any whole is going to be represented in all its parts, however much the parts may be mutually antagonistic.
• “Individuals” are not unitary, as we have been at pains to explain. Every 3D individual is only a part of its larger self, and not every part is going to have the same nature; hence, not the same values.
• Any individual contains far more threads than it can express, by design: One’s life allows choice, and choice is not so much choice among possible beliefs as among possible qualities to embody.
• Duality – seeing things as good and evil – is a condition, not an inescapable part of life.

I think you mean, and I misspoke or misheard or whatever, duality is only one way to experience the world.

No, no. Duality is inescapable within 3D. But seeing the conditions of duality as good and evil is a condition; it is a choice. It is not necessary. And of course various higher religions – and ways of being that are not even recognized as religions – understand and at their best embody this understanding.

So we may choose among values without it being good or evil.

Again, slower. You know that isn’t what we mean.

I don’t, quite. But I can see I am going wrong by feeling my way to your meaning before you finish setting out the premises.

That isn’t quite the pitfall. Rather, it is in premature hardening of your opinion – your attitude toward the idea as you understand it. It isn’t that you may choose anything you wish and it won’t be good or evil. It is more like, you may (will) choose and it will be good or evil for you. That is, you as individual may choose what you know goes against your values. 3D conditions allow that, in a way that would not be possible otherwise. That is how you change, or is one-way you change, and not the best way.

Now, when we get beyond good and evil, what do we see?

Bear in mind, these words will appear to be nonsense or evasion to any who have not gotten there.

Myself included – but I recognize that there is something there to be seen. I never understood what Nietzsche meant by it, and I tend to think of him as poor mad Nietzsche, but I do sense that he was onto something that remains beyond me. I know enough to know that he wasn’t saying, “Do whatever you want, and if you can get away with it, fine.” But knowing that much does not tell me what he does mean.

You will remember your line from Kerouac: “What can’t be said can’t be said, and it can’t be whistled, either.”

Meaning, it is a moving to another level of understanding, and the move cannot be orchestrated by didactic instruction whether of words of other means.

As your author has his characters say, “Amn’t I telling you?”

Maurice Walsh, yes. So if you are leading us to understand how a thing can be beyond good and evil, you aren’t there yet.

Oh, we think we are. We have said what can be said about it, many times. As usual, context is all. When you hear a thing from enough angles, sooner or later it seats in, and from there it is obvious.

Next time, we will attempt to link this practical point to a more abstract concept, as we return to consideration of vast impersonal forces as they express in 3D lives.

Okay, well, thanks for all this, as always.